A team of teenage Gambian students are upset and mystified at being denied visas to attend a major global robotics contest in Washington later this month. This comes days after an Afghan girls team was also turned down by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Neither team was given any reason. …

Hundreds of environmentalists protested in Kraków Tuesday against widespread logging in Europe’s last primeval forest as a conference of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee got underway in the historic city in southern Poland. The environmentalists demanded that the Polish government stop felling trees in the Białowieża forest, a UNESCO World …

Lawyers from around Africa gathered in Cameroon this week to call for tougher legislation against counterfeit medicine.   Sixty tons of counterfeit medicine was burned after being seized by customs officials in Cameroon, who say the stockpile had an estimated value of $80,000. Customs official Marcel Kamgaing said the imitation …

The U.N. children’s fund warns tens of thousands of malnourished children are at great risk in Yemen, Somalia and South Sudan, which are on the brink of famine. UNICEF reports an estimated 4.7 million children in the three cholera-stricken countries are malnourished. Of these, UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac tells VOA, …

Dairy farmers want U.S. regulators to banish the term “soy milk,” but documents show even government agencies haven’t always agreed on what to call such drinks. The U.S. Department of Agriculture “fervently” wanted to use the term “soy milk” in educational materials for the public, according to emails recently released …

A robot wheels across a rocky, windswept landscape that looks like the surface of some distant planet from a science fiction film. But it is not in outer space, it’s on the slopes of Europe’s most active volcano. Mount Etna, in Sicily, is a test bed for the approximately three-foot …

A U.S. federal appeals court ruled Monday that Environmental  Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt lacks the authority to suspend rules that oil and gas companies monitor and fix methane gas leaks. Two of the three judges on the panel wrote that an order delaying such a rule is the same …

Strange sea creatures that resemble large pink thimbles are showing up on the coast of southeast Alaska for the first time after making their way north along the West Coast for the last few years. Scientists say the creatures are pyrosomes, which are tropical, filter-feeding spineless creatures usually found along …

Elon Musk’s SpaceX accomplished another space first when its reusable Dragon cargo ship capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after its second successful mission to the International Space Station. The commercial spacecraft completed its first mission in September 2014. Its second journey to the ISS began on June 3 …

Recent progress in forecasting the intensity of hurricanes —  which has lagged behind storm track forecasting — could be undermined by proposed cuts in federal funding for tropical weather research, says the retiring chief of a team of U.S. hurricane specialists. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched the Hurricane …

3-D printing has given artists and engineers a way to create some of their most daring visions. But it is giving Argentine inventor Gino Tubaro a chance to change lives by building customized prosthetic limbs. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

Sudanese doctors and aid workers are urging the government to declare a state of emergency over a cholera outbreak and delay the start of the school year, which began Sunday.   The disease, which is passed through contaminated water, has surfaced in five states, including the capital, Khartoum. The U.S. …

Panic buttons, used by the elderly when they need help from the police or medical personnel, can be the difference between life and death. Now, a new bracelet fitted with a mobile phone and GPS tracking device could replace panic buttons — and not just for seniors. VOA’s Deborah Block …

The World Health Organization’s new director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, began his five-year term Saturday. The former Ethiopian health and foreign minister is the first African chosen to head the organization.    Tedros, who goes by his first name, won the office by a clear majority, defeating British and Pakistani …

Democratic Republic of Congo declared its two-month Ebola outbreak officially over Saturday after 42 days without recording a new case of the disease. The outbreak in Congo’s remote northeastern forests, a record eighth for the country where the disease was first discovered in 1976, killed four out of the eight …

Turkey has always prided itself on being a secular state. The nation enshrined the separation of church and state in its constitution by constitutional amendment in 1928. But that was nearly a century ago, and about 99 percent of the nation’s citizens are now identified as Muslim. Watch: Evolution vs. …

The separation of church and state was enshrined in Turkey’s constitution by constitutional amendment in 1928. But the current government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has received some criticism for eroding the country’s historic commitment to secularism. The latest move by the government is to ban the teaching of …

Backyard cooks looking to grill this summer have another option: hot dogs without “added nitrites.” Are they any healthier? Oscar Mayer is touting its new hot dog recipe that uses nitrite derived from celery juice instead of artificial sodium nitrite, which is used to preserve the pinkish colors of processed …

The fly that carries African sleeping sickness may carry the seeds of its own destruction, according to new research. Scientists have detailed the unique relationship between the tsetse fly and bacteria in its gut the fly can’t live without. The tsetse fly spreads African sleeping sickness to humans from wild …

President Donald Trump is forming a National Space Council to be led by Vice President Mike Pence.   The president signed an executive order Friday to revive a council last in place in 1993.   Trump says the announcement sends a clear signal to the world about the United States’ …

Climate change will have an impact, not just on the temperature, but on the economy, according to a new analysis. A group of researchers has just released a study focused on the future economic effects of climate change in the U.S. Using six different economic variables, the team is predicting, …

The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season has arrived. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there’s a 45 percent chance that this year’s activity will be above normal, with up to four major hurricanes. VOA’s George Putic visited the wind tunnel at the nearby University of Maryland to experience the hurricane-strength …

New government data show the health of pregnant women and babies in the U.S. is getting worse, and a report by the National Center for Health Statistics shows the number of babies born prematurely has been increasing since 2014. Preterm American births increased in 2016 and 2015 after seven years …

New research suggests that the ability of children in Africa to perform well in school could be dramatically improved through basic malaria education and treatment. While less fatal among older children, malaria infections often reduce a child’s ability to concentrate, as Henry Ridgwell reports. …

Poor and southern U.S. counties will get hit hardest by global warming, according to a first-of-its-kind detailed projection of potential climate change effects at the local level. The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, calculates probable economic harms and benefits for the more than 3,100 counties in the United …